


We Have Been Very Brave

by akzseinga



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akzseinga/pseuds/akzseinga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The veins on Bellamy’s hands are light blue and so thick she can easily trace them with her finger; and if she concentrates really hard on the rivers of his hands – eyes shut tight, even breath – she can almost feel his blood flowing towards the heart, almost hear the quiet hum of it. His heart is big, she knows, bigger everyday, neverending.</p><p>For lackadaisicalnereid, inspired by her prompt:<br/>"What we love wells up from our wounds like blood.<br/>It drips from our thirsty bodies and dries in the sand."<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	We Have Been Very Brave

 

ONE.

 

The veins on Bellamy’s hands are light blue and so thick she can easily trace them with her finger; and if she concentrates really hard on the rivers of his hands – eyes shut tight, even breath – she can almost feel his blood flowing towards the heart, almost hear the quiet hum of it. His heart is big, she knows, bigger everyday, neverending. 

Her own heart is flawed, she knows that too, there is a murmur in it. A noise that doctors heard back on the Ark, the one that nearly prevented her from walking among stars. You see, in space you have to be quiet. Not even your heart can give you away.

She wonders if Bellamy can tell it by looking at her veins. She heard that eyes are mirrors of the soul, maybe hands tell you a secret about someone’s heart.

Here, here is my wrist, keep me awake, tell me I’m good.

He never tells her that, but he kisses her hands like he is dying of thirst and she is a lake.

 

*

 

The first time she goes swimming, she can’t quite believe the abundance of it, all this water surrounding her and embracing her as is she belonged in its cold depths.

“How deep is it?” she asks and Bellamy laughs a little, a happy bark, as if he was a careless boy once more.

(Was he ever?)

“I don’t know, Reyes, are you scared?”

“Careful, Blake, you are walking on a mighty thin ice here.”

“And what are you gonna do?”

“Kick your ass, as usual.”

“First you will have to catch me, chicken.”

He runs further into the lake, splashing water all around him, knees high, arms wide open. He jumps underwater then, head first and when he comes back up after a moment, his black hair is all over his face and he is laughing, unreserved and free and loud. Sunlight is spilling on the surface of the lake and on Bellamy’s face equally, as if he was a part of it now, the most welcomed part of Earth. Raven watches, mesmerized, and thinks that it might be the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

She follows.

 

*

 

The way Bellamy kisses her neck almost tells her something, something she isn’t sure she has a name for yet. She wonders if in the long history of Earth there was someone who knew, someone who was lying in the same spot as her, under another body, with sand sticking to the back and water rinsing the feet, who was feeling just the way she feels now and knew the exact words to frame it, to define it, to keep it. She’s afraid that maybe without understanding what Bellamy is trying to tell her, it will go away, vanish from her memory soon enough, without a trace, just like prints of their bodies on the sand will soon be devoured by lake or rain or other disaster.

This is what happens, after all. Nothing lasts.

She lets Bellamy kiss her neck and chin, lets him hold her face in his big strangely delicate hands and when he caresses her ears and temples with his fingers, she sighs and, for a while, she stops thinking.

(Her head is as big as Bellamy’s heart and hands and sometimes she gets lost in it, in the endless maze of overthinking and the need to understand.)

Bellamy is heavy on top of her and he is smelling of fresh air and cold water. She bites him when she comes and she can feel salty sweat on her tongue and sand gritting between her teeth.

There might be some found words in there as well, at the back of her throat, trying to crawl out of her mouth. She swallows them back, swallows them whole. 

 

*

 

She believes she can finally hear it, her heart murmur, and she wonders if this was it all along.

It whispers:

I love, I love, I love.

(The closest she gets to stars now is looking at the calm surface of the lake reflecting the night sky. She holds Bellamy’s hand and through his veins, feels his heart.)

(She thinks it will do just fine.)

 

 

TWO.

 

There’s a map on Raven’s hands, the cuts from wires and burns from wielding a hot metal, blending with palm lines of her head and heart, of life and fate. His mother used to play with him and Octavia, looking at their hands and reading their future, sometimes lying about their present: this line here shows you are strong and brave, devoted and selfless and this one shows you will stay this way as long as you live. 

Raven’s hands are rough and coarse, so much smaller than his own, but there is strength in them that comes from being forged in fire. He can tell which burn hurt the most and which cut was the deepest. He touches the scar that he thinks healed the longest and kisses the one that is still fresh and white. There’s blood on her hands too, dark red and old as trees, but she can’t see it, so it doesn’t seem to bother her.

Despite what Aurora’s taught him, he can’t say much about Raven’t future and only a little about her present, but the lines of her palm tell a thing or two about her past and from what he can see, it’s filled mostly with pain. She screamed sometimes, he remembers, but mostly she kept to herself. You see, on Earth you have be quiet. 

He doesn’t ask about her scars so she doesn’t tell, but she touches him with hands that are dying and it doesn’t seem to hurt her anymore.

 

*

 

The first time he sees a forest fire, he can’t quite believe the mindless hunger of it all, flames devouring everything in their path.

“How big is it?” he asks and Raven frowns, brows knit together, eyes dark and grim, and lips pursed in a line so thin it's hard to believe she can smile.

(Will she ever again?)

“I don’t know, Blake, despite popular opinion I don’t know everything.”

“We should warn others.”

“I don’t think it will reach our camp. There is a glen and a lake on its way.”

She looks as if she could stop the fire from spreading with her will alone and Bellamy thinks if there is one person in the whole world who could do that, it would be Raven. He takes a closer look at her hard face and sees flames reflected in her eyes, sees that she is not afraid. Bellamy thinks that Raven might understand fire the way she understands mechanics, the way she understand everything when she puts her mind and hands into it. She moves first.

He follows.

 

*

 

Raven is naked on the cold ground and there’s dirt under her nails and perhaps that is why she is careful when she scratches his back, careful not to break skin. Perhaps her gentleness comes from something else entirely, something he is too much of a coward to name. Flames of nearby campfire are dancing on her body, drawing crosses on her breasts and legs and she is dazzling, his head heavy with her scent. She smells of ashes and tastes of iron and when he licks her and eats her up, she ignites. She comes with legs on his arms and he can feel her toes curling, her fingers tightening on his hair, almost desperate, almost begging. He pulls himself up and wraps her in his arms; he heard enough stories of little birds dying in flames and combustion to be afraid that she too will disappear.

This is what happens, after all. Nothing lasts. 

He lets Raven tuck a strand of hair behind his ear and kiss his neck. Her skin is sticky and hot and feels so good under him, that for a second he forgets about the world.

(His heart is as rough and coarse as Raven’s hands and sometimes he gets lost in it, in the endless maze of trying to be fearless, to be better than he is.)

Raven sits on top of him and she is smiling with only one corner of her lips. He digs his fingers into the flesh of her legs, trying to hold her a little longer, but she is not flying away, she starts deliberately rocking her body, towards and backwards, and before he knows it, he burns as well.

She muffles his scream with her mouth and he cups her head in his hands, taking everything she has to give, giving everything she wants to take.

 

*

 

He believes that when Raven finally reaches inside him, she pulls out something that was there all along.

It whispers:

I’m yours, I’m yours, I'm yours.

(The closest he gets to a place where the mistakes he made stop hurting is with Raven by his side, her knowing the best and worst of him and looking at him as if it was enough. He holds Raven’s hand, reads palm lines of her head and heart, of life and fate, and feels that maybe he is ready for the world.)

(He thinks it will do just fine.)


End file.
